Gas supply to Asogli, VRA plants improves

Ghana’s natural gas supply from Nigeria has increased from 30 million cubic feet to 100 million cubic feet, a senior official of the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum has said.

Mr Edward Bawah, the Head of Communications at the ministry, said after the damage to gas pipelines in 2013, following which the country experienced a power crisis, the volume of gas supplied to Ghana had fluctuated between 30 and 70 million cubic feet.

That fell below the contractual volume of 120 million standard cubic feet which Nigeria is required to supply to the country.

In an interview, Mr Bawah said the improved volume would ensure enough gas supply to the Asogli and the VRA plants at Aboadze, while the country awaited the supply of gas from the Atuabo Gas Plant.

He said currently planned maintenance works on the T1 and T2 generation plants had affected the country’s energy reserve, hence the shortfall of about 250 megawatts of power.

The work on the T2, which uses both gas and light crude, would be completed by the end of February to produce an additional 200 megawatts of power.

“Even though there was enough light crude oil to power the generating units, with the improved volumes, Asogli, which has the capacity to produce about 200 megawatts, can have enough gas supply to power it,” Mr Bawah said.

Shutdown

The T3 was expected to deliver 132 megawatts of power to the national grid. However, shortly after its completion, some units were damaged and that resulted in its complete shutdown.

WAPCo shutdown and resumption

In August 2012, the West African Gas Pipeline Company, the operator of the pipeline, shut down the system, after a ship anchor damaged a portion of the pipeline.

In July 2013, WAPCo announced the resumption of gas supply but the volume was not enough to feed the VRA plants and those of the independent power producers.